Police line in Germany
Police line in GermanyiStock

German investigators said Monday they were probing an attack on a Jewish student outside a synagogue in the northwestern city of Hamburg as attempted murder with anti-Semitic intent.

The suspect, a 29-year-old man who has been arrested, was dressed in combat fatigues and had a piece of paper with a handdrawn swastika in his pocket, said police and prosecutors in a statement.

"The current assessment of the situation suggests that this is an anti-Semitic motivated attack," they said, adding that investigators are treating it as a "attempted murder with grievous bodily harm".

The victim suffered serious injuries when the suspect beat the student in the head with a shovel.

Security guards working at the synagogue intervened, detaining the suspect until police arrived.

The attack occurred almost exactly a year after a neo-Nazi attacked a synagogue in Halle, Germany.

The October 9th, 2019 attack on a synagogue during Yom Kippur prayers was foiled when the gunman, Stephan Ballet, was unable to breach the synagogue’s door.

Unable to carry out the planned massacre in the synagogue, Ballet shot and killed two people nearby, including a 40-year-old woman walking down the street and a man working at a nearby kebab shop.